


A Dumb Screenshot of Youth

by angeloncewas



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Marriage Proposal, One Shot, Platonic Relationships, Stargazing, Trauma, Tubbo is coping, le gasp marriage without romance, no beta we die like michael's chicken, or at least trying, war will do that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29733939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloncewas/pseuds/angeloncewas
Summary: Marriage is not just a legal agreement, but a covenant. You are making a promise that you will stick together for life.-“That one’s Theseus,” Tubbo jokes, pointing at a cluster of stars that might look vaguely like an apple, if aided by a squint.Ranboo nods with mock gravity. “Techno curses at it every night.”
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo
Comments: 23
Kudos: 378





	A Dumb Screenshot of Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Summary quote derived from [this video](https://youtu.be/uQw0eLzfGNI) \- the video itself isn’t particularly relevant, but it’s stuck with me for years.

A tapestry of stars hangs overhead, far beyond where mortal hands can reach. Each pinprick glow tells a story in its stagnance; lions and boars and men fight in wars, emerge victorious, fall and are immortalized.

There are a hundred constellations visible from the roof of Tubbo’s house in Snowchester, and neither of them can ever remember their names, but they try.

“That one’s Theseus,” Tubbo jokes, pointing at a cluster that might look vaguely like an apple, if aided by a squint.

Ranboo nods with mock gravity. “Techno curses at it every night.”

They’ve gotten past the awkwardness that comes with house and home, family and friendship, L’manberg and its destruction. The names of the men that destroyed the place they used to live no longer go off like bombs between them, and Tubbo laughs at the thought of a callous pig on a quest to fight the universe.

Ranboo doesn’t regret what happened. He can’t. The future is made for people like Tubbo, kind and only more-himself now that his wrists no longer bend under the weight of Wilbur’s shackles.

L’manberg was a life sentence and Ranboo has long since stopped trying to convince Tubbo of that fact, but he’s still grateful for its death in every unrestrained snowfall.

Tubbo nudges him with his shoulder. “Which one’s you?”

Scanning the endless sky, Ranboo points to just beyond the line of the incomplete stone wall. “That one,” he says decisively, “it looks sorta like a crown.”

Tubbo hums his agreement and points in the opposite direction. “That one’ll be mine then.”

Ranboo can’t see a shape where Tubbo points, only a scattering of light; suspended stones dancing around each other somewhere in the universe. They seem just as haphazard as Tubbo, and it suits, but maybe he’s missing the finer details. Plenty of people do.

“So far away?”

“Our constellations can be penpals.”

 _Like us,_ Ranboo thinks, a half-truth in his own head.

Snowchester has been offered up to him a thousand times over, but he can never make the cold of it sink in, not in the way it does on a completely different stretch of land.

There is no longer a country, he is no longer the minutes-man to Tubbo’s presidency, but Ranboo still keeps time. It usually takes just under an hour to bring one of them to the other, passing through fire and blackstone along the way.

They _could_ exchange letters, but it wouldn’t be quite the same.

Tubbo traces the exposed scars from his wrist to the back of his hand with a finger, thoughtful in the seemingly practiced motion. Ranboo can't remember if he's ever known the story behind them, but he does know that they are who Tubbo is now, just as much as Snowchester and everything else.

“What if we got married?” Tubbo asks, jarringly.

“What?”

“You and me.” Careless in his suggestion, he sounds, for once, entirely sincere. “Holy matrimony.”

“We’re not…” Ranboo swallows, abrupt anxiety heavy in his stomach, some strange fear that he's misinterpreting something burning at the tips of his ears. “We’re not in love though.”

Tubbo laughs his unburdened laugh, another persistent piece of him. “Well, of course not.” He drapes his legs dramatically over Ranboo’s, not a second of hesitancy in the motion. “But I do love you.”

It’s an abstract thing, past the covetation of attachments and Ranboo’s desperate want for security; he’s never had to think about it, never had a reason to.

Love isn’t found in a shaky wooden shack on borrowed land or in an abandoned ice cream shop with an endless supply. It can’t be. It wouldn’t be fair. It would be too cruel.

Tubbo awaits his response with wide, earnest eyes and Ranboo thinks of Enderchest, of soft amber and a low purr. He thinks of Phil and Techno and their silent agreements, of Friend the sheep and Ghostbur, nestled into the snow.

He thinks of Tubbo, of his nonchalant attitude and his simple acceptance.

“I love you too,” Ranboo replies, voice steady.

The answering grin Tubbo offers is brighter than anything the sky could muster up. “That’s what’s important, isn’t it?” he says emphatically. “Who decided that marriage is for people in love?”

“Isn’t that, like, the whole point?”

Tubbo shrugs, his fur-lined hood bouncing. “It's just a word and something to do. Marriage can be whatever we want it to be.”

“What do you want it to be?” Ranboo inquires.

“This.” Tubbo’s tone is plain, no pretense or purpose behind his insistence, like he’s telling Ranboo something he should already know. “You and me against the world.”

_You and me._

“And Tommy,” Tubbo adds almost immediately, some pensiveness flitting across his face; he’s been presented a problem too big to deal with properly. “He’d never marry us, though.”

“‘Us?’” Ranboo laughs lightly. “I haven’t agreed.”

“Aw, _c’mon.”_ He’s met with a pout, the same kind that arises when Tubbo wants equipment mended or a favor done. The soft statement of someone wholly convinced they’ll emerge victorious. “Weddings are fun! With how Big Q and them are being, you might never get to see one.”

Ranboo wheezes, something hysterical fluttering around his lungs. “Is something gonna happen to me before they get married?”

Tubbo waves his hands in what’s probably meant to indicate ominousness. “You never know.”

_Marriage._

Of all things, big and small - from Dream’s echo in his mind to the way the fire licks at his hands and illuminates a grin in some distant part of his memory - Ranboo never could’ve predicted where he is now.

“This feels... abnormal,” he says aloud.

“Nothing about us is _normal,_ memory boy.” Tubbo gestures to the tundra with a flat palm, presenting the land he’s claimed and bent and shaped as though it’s the next performer on fate’s stage. “How many half-endermen do you see, just, walking around?”

“How many human teenagers,” Ranboo’s retort carries only a faint bite, with all the staleness of a rehashed argument, “keep creating governments?

Tubbo rolls his eyes. “Everybody wants power.”

“Is that what the marriage is for?” he asks, somewhat facetiously, but Tubbo replies instantly.

“Never.”

“Then what?”

It’s not that Ranboo doesn’t trust Tubbo. He trusts Tubbo more than most, in fact.

If not for Tubbo, he probably would’ve lost himself to the silent warning in Techno’s eyes amongst ceaseless destruction, gone adrift out to sea with no peace or company. Tubbo is his anchor, for better or for worse, and has been for longer than he can recall.

It’s just that he doesn’t _understand._

Maybe it’s a human thing, beyond what can be learned in books and through bits and pieces of scribbled-down spoken word. The things people ask for, what they might want and why, they’re too specific to hold up on paper.

Ranboo knows Tubbo, but he also doesn’t at all. They were allies, once, and competitors in the same breath. That doesn’t, ultimately, mean much.

“I don't care about having power over people,” Tubbo explains, still solemn, a facsimile of his other half in front of a crowd. Tommy wore conviction to make up for lost time, but the two of them have as long as they’d like and on Tubbo it looks more like a vulnerability than armor. “I want it for me. I want - I want to know that I could win. People-”

Tubbo’s voice drops, a rare bit of hesitancy in his tone. It sounds almost like embarrassment, like he can shout to all the universes above and below anything but who he is. “People won’t hurt me if it’ll hurt them back.”

 _You won’t leave me if you have a reason to stay,_ reprises the silence that follows, filling in the gaps between Tubbo’s erratic tapping along the shingles of the roof and the vague click of a skeleton’s bones in the distance.

Ranboo wonders, not for the first time, what parts of the past will forever remain behind thin lips and warily exchanged glances. What made Tubbo how he is, tense and cautious behind his high-powered weaponry and whims, some thread in his gaze pulled so taut it could snap at any moment.

“Okay,” Ranboo says.

“Okay,” Tubbo echoes, automatically.

 _“Okay,_ we can get married.”

There’s a distinct pause that cuts through the air, stilling the swish of the wheat farm to hyper-focus on the way Tubbo stops tapping and looks at him with an unreadable expression.

Something curls and uncurls and curls again in his chest as Tubbo sighs.

“That’s not much of a proposal.”

“What- you-” Ranboo sputters and Tubbo laughs again, like this whole thing is easy.

Maybe it is for him. War has touched everything they’ve ever known, left it bruised and bleeding and broken. The little things don’t seem so little anymore and evermore important for it.

He scoots back to lean his head on Ranboo’s shoulder and Ranboo can feel it when he nods, however miniscule.

“We’ll flip a coin,” Tubbo says. “Loser has to propose.”

It’s ridiculous, but the whole thing is.

There’s a lot the two of them will never know, pieces of the past they’ll both end up forgetting.

Ranboo planned to run for president once, and so did Tubbo, but also neither of them actually wanted the job and maybe they’ll never get to discussing the _why_ of it all.

It doesn’t matter, not really. Not in comparison to the fifty-fifty Ranboo will lose the next day or the grass knot he’ll promptly tie around Tubbo’s fourth finger.

In reality, stars don’t form pictures any more than the sand or snow does, marked by mortal hands. The sky is just a canvas. Everything is whatever they want it to be.

Tubbo wants a promise and Ranboo is willing to make one; one that will stretch across the meters and miles and time between the places they call home, one that will outlast whatever may come.

For them, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> To conclude:
> 
> \- This dubiously canonical marriage is just really something when you consider the long-term lore implications, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it  
> \- I hope you all enjoyed my jab at _the lack of a Karlnapity wedding_  
>  \- Check out my Tumblr! Same @, they heard about this fic first :)


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